Volunteer Info

Important Dates

Donate to the Hastings PTO

The Hastings PTO (Employer Identification Number (EIN): 82-2247326) spends more than $40,000 per year on a wide variety of programs for the school. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to the Hastings PTO!

Get the word out!

Here is an overview of the various vehicles you should leverage to get the word out. Be sure to read the Committee Guidelines for additional information about event planning and communication and for VP contact information.

Hastings Weekly Bulletin

Published every Wednesday, the Bulletin carries brief announcements about all upcoming Hastings academic and school community events. It is the primary communication vehicle for all purposes including: advertising (pre-event), communicating about your event once it has happened, and recruiting and thanking volunteers. To keep the bulletin friendly and readable, please keep the message succinct. Messages for the Bulletin will be limited to 700 characters.Bulletin submissions are due by 12pm Monday for the bulletin that is published that week on Wednesday. Submit your bulletin article.

Hastings PTO Email List

A secondary vehicle to be used when your message missed the Bulletin on Wednesday, the PTO email list can be used to send a message to PTO members for items such as final notices about events, changes in time/date due to weather, etc. Submit an announcement to the Hastings PTO Email List.

Hastings PTO website

Hastings-pto.org is the best forum to exhibit general information about your committee and the additional details of your upcoming events. Your committee’s web page and the PTO home page with upcoming events are available to Hastings community at all times. Request updates to your committee’s web page by sending details of your request to website@hastings-pto.org.

Hastings Room Parents

Hastings Room Parents are volunteers in our children’s classrooms who signed on to help organize and participate in “classroom activities” (versus PTO events). Therefore, we ask Board members to limit their use of Room Parents as a communication vehicle to class or grade-level specific events as much as possible. PTO activities that would most likely need Room Parents to help get the word out to their classrooms are programs such as Big Backyard (which are done at grade level). General, school-wide fundraisers and other community-wide events should focus on the other, above-mentioned communication vehicles as much as possible. In all cases, please limit requests to Room Parents to one communication per event as much as possible. All requests to forward information to Room Parents should be sent to the Room Parent Chair at roomparents@hastings-pto.org.

Backpack Flyers*

While we try to do as much as possible online, you may need to send out flyers for your event. Because of the cost associated with flyers, please keep these to a minimum and consider whether a half-page flyer is sufficient. In order to maintain consistency, we ask that all committees use the PTO templates for flyers and send them to your committee’s VP and/or one of the Co-Presidents for approval before having them copied. The school no longer copies flyers for us. We now have them printed at Wales Copy Shop in Lexington Center. When bringing or sending a flyer to Wales, be sure to specify (1) that the copies should be charged to the Hastings PTO account and printed on bright yellow PTO paper, (2) whether you need one copy per family (preferred) or child, and (3) whether you want Wales to collate them. After you pick them up, bring them to the staff in the front office for distribution to the teachers and be sure to tell her whether there is one copy for every child or for every family.

Posters*

These may be placed around the school to advertise your event. Please check with the staff in the front office about putting your poster up.

Banners*

These may be hung in front of the school. Be sure to hang them with strong rope, as they have been known to fly away in a strong wind! Many committees have used Vistaprint.com or Staples to purchases banners made of outdoor-grade vinyl.

*Prior to printing any hard copies of flyers, posters, or banners, please show your final draft to your assigned VP for proofreading.